Wednesday and Fridays Pics....and Photomatix

I have definetly have to get used to this blog. I'm pretty sure that I am able to at least put 1 or 2 photos daily on this thing. And why blog, I guess to put what ever you have in your brain in paper or now days online. So, in a couple of weeks if you need something that you forgot how to do, you go back to your blog and see if you wrote it. Basically you keep track of "your" current events. I'm a very forgetful person. Sometimes I'll buy sticky notes and write on them the stuff that I need to do, but, I forget to look at them. I guess I must have at least 3 empty schedule calenders that I haven't used. Anyways, I will definetly try to keep this blog somehow active with daily pictures and perhaps some stories. One thing for sure....it will involved photography........

I will post a couple photos from wednesday. This is Rodney. I found Rodney waiting for his friend at Starbucks. He was dressed with a dark tie and suit. But, what stood out was his red shirt. I introduced myself to Rodney and asked if I could shoot a couple images of him. And usually photographers "know" when they "see" a possible image that can be produced great results. Rodney , thanks for being a great sport.

I tried photomatix last year and I loved it. This software can produce great HDR images. For more information on HDR you can look it up in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging.

The only problem with the trial of photomatix is that it watermarks your final images. But, is a great bait for photographers. And they did get me. So, now I have the real program and I do not regret getting it. Some photographers don't like this because they say that doing this does not produce the same quality of image as if you would use strobes. But, at the same time you will hear pro's saying that this is great if you know how to use it right. And I agree with that. I've seen some really cartoonish looking images from this, but, also some great realistic photo like images too. I will give you my personal opinion of what HDR imagery does. HDR Images take alot of work to produce. But, the final product is amazing. What HDRI (high dynamic range imagery) does is get all the right exposures correctly. For this, Photographers use a computer software to merge all the different images that have different exposures to be able to produce a final looking image of what the actual "scenery" looked like to the human eye. Most of the time, to be able to capture these images it would take 1 or more strobes to light up and get the foreground and background exposed correctly or any other area that needs to lighted up. I know for a fact that I will use photomatix more often.....enjoy.

This here is about 4 images. It was about 7:30 in the morning. I exposed one for the the sky outside, the countertop, shelves and wall. You could say all these images are test shots. To get this you would need a strobe on your left with a softbox and perhaps a reflector or two.

I really like this. This is my suburban. I think I must have taken 5 or six images. Like I said earlier, you must know how to use photomatix the right way and also the subject matter is important. My truck ended up looking kind of like a CGI (computer generated image). But, I guess that's how we learn.

Now, this turned out little bit nicer. The sky is the right color is not washed out. Even though the background is out of focus, I did that in purpose. I wanted the brick wall in front to be the focus of the photograph. There's 5 images involved in this capture. Also, the colors, shadow, highlights are in there right place. But, still I need more practice.

Hopefully, my next ones can be of better subjects......